


How to Speak a Foreign Tongue: Second Impressions

by afterandalasia



Series: Life Built on Snow and Ashes [11]
Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Bonding, Cooking, Crossover, F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Femslash, sharing food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 10:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22494238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: Missing scene for somewhere before chapter seven ofHow to Speak a Foreign Tongue. Elsa brings round food for Heather, and rescues a rough evening.Or, I saw an excuse for fluffy pre-femslash and took it.
Relationships: Elsa (Disney)/Heather (How to Train Your Dragon)
Series: Life Built on Snow and Ashes [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/351317
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	How to Speak a Foreign Tongue: Second Impressions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashleybenlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleybenlove/gifts).



> So, uh, this was supposed to be... somewhere before chapter seven? of HTSAFT. But yeah, it took a while for me to finish writing it. Sorry. Rather than having a specific setting for this, it's a generic feel for the scandalous evening meetings that a certain someone later objects to.
> 
> Obviously, this is still when there’s a lot going on with Heather. So there’s a background of grief, PTSD, and depression on Heather’s part, and some references that are bordering on disordered eating. But despite that, the overall piece is quite gentle and fluffy - it’s a “one good day in a bad period of life” sort of feeling.
> 
> Snowe recipe from http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/snow.html

It was snowing again. Hiccup had not been joking when he talked about Berk’s weather, it appeared. Heather rubbed her damp foot against the back of the opposite calf, and grimaced.

She really should be wearing her mother’s boots. It just didn’t feel right to do so.

Sighing, Heather looked up at the chalk notes across the wall. Some of them had faded a bit in the steam, and she would need to tidy them up, but she was starting to mentally rule out some of the combinations of stones.

Gronckle metal was only a step away. She could almost taste it.

A knock at the door caught her attention, and she turned, frowning. There weren’t many people who even spoke to her when she was out in the village, let alone who came to her door. Usually Hiccup, checking up on her as if he was the big brother of the whole of Berk, or Elsa with a cautious smile.

It would be a lie if she said that she didn’t hope it was Elsa.

She hurried to the door, pushed aside the empty fish and water buckets which she had dumped just inside it, and pulled it open. Her heart leapt when she realised that it _was_ Elsa, cloak pulled up against the snow, a bundle in her hands which, knowing her, was probably food. Hiccup might have acted like everyone’s older brother, a burgeoning chiefhood that was not exactly difficult to spot, but Elsa took a simpler route. Food, plenty of it, and she never turned down Heather’s offers to share. Heather could respect that.

“Hey. Come in,” she said, stepping back to let Elsa enter. “Everything all right?”

Elsa pushed back her hood. Some stray snow sparkled on her brow, but the rest of her hair was dry, smooth white-blonde waves. Gods, it was distractingly unfair to let someone who was so nice be so attractive as well. “It is fine,” said Elsa, warmly. Warm enough to spread straight down Heather’s spine, at least. “I came to see how you are doing.”

“Well, you may not be the blacksmith’s apprentice,” said Heather, “but you did catch on to those numbers more quickly.”

Elsa gave her a look that was probably supposed to be annoyed, but there was too much of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips for Heather to believe it. It was better when she looked like that, not so earnest and so desperately wanting to help.

Heather did not want to need to be helped.

“Hiccup offered me a book which he said was about numbers,” said Elsa, “but there were a lot of words in it as well.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that does sound like him. Berk is… one of the places I’ve met that seems most worried about people being able to read. Even if it’s only to read a little,” she added, in deference to what Hiccup had insisted. “I don’t think you need to worry too much about reading. Even I don’t usually bother too much,” she added, although she gestured to the writing across the wall behind her.

Elsa’s smile… not quite softened, that was not the word. Perhaps it was some sadness that crept into it, or some feeling of conflict. There was part of Heather that felt bad for analysing her expressions and her words so closely, but she had so much to catch up on compared to the rest of them.

“Anna thinks that I should learn to read again,” said Elsa. She made the words sound tired. “I know she means well, but… there is a lot going on already. I cannot help but think that words can wait.”

So Anna put a lot of stock in words. Heather filed it away with the other bits and pieces that she had picked up; most of what she knew of Anna was still through Elsa, knowing as she did that her mere presence annoyed the girl. Although perhaps it was mean to call her a girl, when she was only a year younger than Heather was.

She didn’t know so much about Arendelle, had never been there, but had seen some islands that shared more than a little of its culture. And one thing had been very marked, in the Southern Isles at least: rich people could read; most people could not.

Before the Wildlands, before Berk, it sounded like Anna and Elsa must have been well-to-do. Maybe it explained Elsa’s gentle ways of moving, or perhaps that was restraint and the knowledge of magic in her fingertips. As for Anna, well… there was still a lot there which Heather was not sure how to explain.

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” said Heather aloud, not letting the fitting together of thoughts show in her expression. “Once you’ve got things written down, they tend to stay there. As long as it’s not written in chalk, of course.”

“Of course,” Elsa echoed.

She pulled off her cloak with one hand, and Heather suspected that the pottery jar tucked against her was more the reason for the cloak than any effect the weather might have on Elsa herself. Heather took the cloak from her hand, smiled at the look of surprise that crossed Elsa’s face, and hung it up by the door. The snow was melting to water on it, but that only served to further adhere the leaves that must have been whipped into it by the wind.

“Did the jar want to check that everything was all right as well?” said Heather.

She had to admit, seeing the jar made her remember that she was hungry. Hungry in a way that picking at half-stale bread and the occasional nut or two from the large jar in the pantry did not really address, just put off for a while.

“Gobber and Stoick do seem to over-estimate how much food Hiccup can eat,” said Elsa, managing to keep her voice very serious. “Either that, or they think that he will feed it to Toothless.”

“Now _that_ I would not put past him.” She relented; at least Elsa would eat with her, and talk. Astrid would just fix her with a piercing stare if she stumbled or her hand trembled while they were supposed to be sparring, and would ask bluntly if she had eaten that day.

It did help that Elsa’s cooking was rather better than Astrid’s, as well.

“Go on, put it by the fire to warm up,” Heather said, and at least it felt worth it for Elsa’s smile. “What is it?”

“Goose stew,” said Elsa, as she placed the jar beside the fire, and set to adding more wood. “Apparently they flew close enough for people to try their hand at archery – Stoick ended up being given some.”

“I’ve got some apples, some pears,” said Heather, mentally rolling through what was in her meagre pantry. Some eggs that hadn’t gone off, almond milk that kept better than yak. There might not have been pure sugar to be had in Berk, but she certainly had some crystallised honey that would do as well; if she could not make baked fruit and snowe then she did not deserve to be in possession of cooking implements.

“You don’t have to,” Elsa said, but they both knew that Elsa would not stop her. Not from providing food, and not from acting like a normal human being, either.

Perhaps, if there was some left over, she could take it to her father the next day. Heather hesitated for an instant, hands trembling, before she got a grip on herself again and continued. She straightened up Elsa’s cloak, then couldn’t help a smile as she saw a stray daisy stuck to the wool, somehow still bright despite the terrible weather outside.

“Looks like you brought a friend in with you,” she said, twirling the daisy between her fingers. Elsa peered curiously over, one sleeve pushed up and hand lingering on the other. There was something about seeing her standing there, warm with firelight, which made Heather feel a little more like maybe there could be such a thing as a home on Berk. On any one island. That if it was possible to look that at peace, then she had a chance. “Daisy. Know a few songs about them. The sun looking out through them to keep an eye on the world. Or a hundred eyes, as it were.”

Elsa smiled. “I like that story.”

“Do you know the game that goes with them?” It was impulsive, and she knew it. But it felt good to do something on impulse, to not fret and fear and second-guess herself a dozen times a day. Of course, there were at least a dozen games to do with daisies, but she knew which one she wanted to try. Heather wandered back over to the fire by Elsa, still holding up the daisy between them like a prize. “Of alternating questions?”

“No?”

There was enough of a question to it for Elsa’s curiosity to be clear, and Heather smiled. “One person picks a petal, and asks a question. The other person answers, then picks the next petal and asks the question back.”

“Not too complicated, then.”

“What can I say? Sometimes you’ve got to have games that everyone can keep up with.” Again, that giggle, almost caught behind her hand. Heather tilted the daisy towards her. “Tell you what, I’ll let you go first.”

Elsa looked at the daisy for a couple of seconds, and Heather could all but see her weighing it up, but there was still a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Any question?” she said.

“Well, I can’t promise much of an answer if you ask about yak breeding, but I’ll give it a fair go.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have referenced breeding. She felt her cheeks grow warm, but mercifully Elsa just laughed the comment aside, finished pushing up her sleeve, and reached out to delicately pluck the first of the petals.

“Very well. How many islands have you visited?”

A good question, even if Heather wasn’t sure that she could give a good answer. She settled for a winning smile. “Now _that_ I’m not sure I could remember. Something like forty. Maybe fifty.” She shrugged, aware that Elsa was looking at her as if _she_ were somehow the one who would have stories worthy of telling. The same way that, she knew, she looked at Elsa and the magic in her hands. “If you gave me a couple of days and a map, I might be able to remember,” she said. “But sometimes we only stopped for a few hours, for a day. Those ones weren’t so memorable.”

“Was Arendelle one of them?” said Elsa.

Heather reached over and tapped her on the nose with the daisy, knowing that she was a little too endeared by how Elsa looked when she was surprised. “My turn,” she said. She pulled off a second petal and let it flutter away. “How many languages do you speak?”

She had heard Northur, and Alvin had told Hiccup and Elsa not to talk in Arendellen. But sometimes Anna had looked uncertain when Elsa was talking, and Heather could not help but wonder.

“Just the two,” said Elsa, and that was not quite what Heather had expected. “Northur, and Marulosen. Hiccup taught me Northur when we met. I have forgotten most of my Arendellen by now, I have not used it in so long.”

That probably did explain it. Heather placed the daisy beside Elsa and stepped down into the pantry, searching for where she had left the apples and pears. They could not very well be _that_ far away.

“ _Have_ you been to Arendelle?” said Elsa again, raising her voice to judge by the way that it carried on into the pantry.

At least the question was hardly a surprise. Heather scooped up the box of fruit, grabbed the basket of eggs from by the door, and just about remembered to tuck the jar of honey beneath her arm as she exited again. “No,” she said. She did not miss the flicker of disappointment in Elsa’s gaze. “We were going to, but… our plans changed.”

She decided against mentioning the death of the King and Queen that had prompted such a change. Doubtless it would have been a far more painful experience to Arendellens.

“Hmm.” Heather put down the food on the edge of the table, then scooped up a wooden chopping board from beside the fire. It was new, crisp, not her parents’ scarred one but a block of wood which Hiccup had managed to source for her. She pointed to Elsa’s hair, in one neat braid over her shoulder. “Who taught you to braid like that?”

Another surprised giggle burst from Elsa’s lips, but she looked more shy as she tucked her hair behind her ear again. “I do not remember.”

“Spoilsport,” she said, deliberately making it sound teasing.

“It may have been in Arendelle,” Elsa added. “Or early in the Wildlands. I am not sure.” But the hand that had tucked back her hair now fiddled with the collar of her shirt, and the edge had gone from her smile. Heather quickly put all thoughts of further questions like that aside.

“Fine. Go on,” she reached over to remove her petal. “Your turn.”

Elsa sighed softly, and met Heather’s gaze. Her eyes really were a shining shade of blue. “What is your favourite island that you have ever visited?”

“Still on islands, hmm?” It was so much easier to tease, to play with words, and so much better when Elsa’s smile softened again. “We visited Corona once, when I was a child. I had never seen so much purple or gold before.”

“Purple?”

That didn’t really count as a question, since it wasn’t about Heather. Or perhaps she was just feeling less strict than she could be. “They have this sort of seashell that only grows in their Royal Bay. It makes the most beautiful shade of purple that doesn’t fade in sun or water. And it made the city rich.” It was a little bit more complicated than that, but not too much. “I’d already been to a dozen islands, and even Chiefs hadn’t worn Coronan purple. But there were children in the streets with purple ribbons in their hair, and buildings with gilded spires.”

Each building probably carried a hundred times more gold than her parents had saved, to trade for the Moonless Night.

“Beautiful city. We were there for some celebration or other. Apparently they’re a regular thing there, as well.”

In her memory, at least, the weather had been bright, the music and celebrations had never seemed to end, and the people had seemed eager to hear the strange northern songs that her father had to offer. Most likely it had not been so perfect, but it had certainly been good enough to be memorable. Her parents had spoken from time to time about going back, but never got around to it.

Heather let her voice soften. “Would you like to go back to Arendelle? Visit it, I mean?” She hadn’t missed the pang in Elsa’s voice, either, and wondered whether it was an attempt to get some information about the land she had long since left.

Elsa’s hand hesitated, holding the wooden spoon she had just picked up in an almost comical sort of way. “One day,” she said, finally. Wistfully. “Things went poorly last time, but… there are plans to change things. When it is safe again, yes. I would like to visit.” She put aside the spoon to pluck another petal from the daisy, with a pointed look in Heather’s direction, then a second one for herself. “So. How does Berk compare to those other islands?”

“Smaller than most. _Wetter_ than most.” She set about separating the eggs, putting the yolks aside. If she tucked them into the snow, they would keep for tomorrow. “But friendlier than most, as well. Less full of grudges than many;” it slipped out before she could catch herself, and she quickly tried to brush it away. “I mean, some islands, people remember who stole one egg from whose chicken a generation ago, and believe me, it is _asking_ for trouble staying too long in places like that.”

It seemed to work, as Elsa laughed.

“Besides,” Heather continued. “It doesn’t exactly seem fair to try to compare anywhere else to Berk. Considering you have _dragons_ ,” she added the almond milk and the sugar-like crystals of honey, and set about the work of whisking it together with the fork. “And _magic_. It’s not like anything has a chance against things like that.”

She wasn’t sure how to read the glance that Elsa sent her way. She wanted to think that it was flattered, either by the compliment to Berk or the more direct one.

“All right. Let’s drop the island talk,” she said, firmly. “What’s your favourite colour?”

She did not expect Elsa to burst out laughing – not just a restrained giggle behind her hands, but a full-blown laugh. “Colour?” she echoed, turning to face Heather fully. “What?”

“Your favourite colour! Is it…” Heather turned her back to the table, leaned against it, and plucked words from the air. “Sunset red?” she offered. “Forest green? That summer-sky blue so deep that it’s almost purple?”

“I have not spent much time thinking about _colours_ ,” Elsa replied, and yes, her tone was definitely teasing. Heather’s smile widened. “But… I suppose that I like blues.” She turned back to look over the stew. “I like seeing colours again. Not just grey or brown or sometimes green.”

“Flowers not up to much in the Wildlands, huh?”

“I did not have much time for flowers.” She said it bluntly, and Heather wondered whether it was deliberately avoiding the sadness of the words. “But here… even the dragons are brightly coloured.”

“Well, they certainly do brighten up the place. Go on,” said Heather, “your turn. And no more island questions.”

Elsa rolled her eyes, and Heather wondered where she had learned that particular gesture because there was something familiar about it in a way that Heather could not quite place. But she plucked two more petals all the same. “Very well. What is _your_ favourite food?”

That was more like it. “That rockling,” said Heather. She realised that her hand had all but stilled in whisking, and returned to her work. “There _is_ a reason I won’t give away the recipe.”

Well, multiple, she supposed. She still wanted to cradle close the memories of her mother teaching her how to cook the rockling, showing her how to smooth the clay into place, what herbs to mix together for it. It was a family recipe, her mother had said, passed down. It had taken Heather one evening to learn the recipe, but much longer to look back and realise that her mother had taught it to her not two days after the local children on one island had mocked Heather for having eyes nothing like her parents’, for not looking like them at all.

“I should make it for you again, some time,” she added. She wasn’t even sure whether she meant just Elsa, or the entirety of Hiccup’s family, and certainly was not up to mulling on it. “So…” this time, she reached across to pluck the petal herself. “Did I understand Astrid right when she said that you were in Hiccup’s workshop? Did the dragons officially mean that his experiments got so big that he needed to move them to the academy?”

It was a little more testing, she knew, but when Elsa laughed she was certain that her words had softened the edge of the question enough. Questions about Berk were a lot easier than questions about the Wildlands or Arendelle, then; safer ground to stick to.

“I do not think it was quite in that order,” Elsa said. “Considering they moved both Toothless and his desk into his room to make space for me.” Perhaps she thought that Heather missed the momentary glance across; to be fair, Heather only just caught it from behind the hair falling in front of her eyes as she continued to whisk. “Before the Red Death, I only knew Hiccup and Astrid, and after it… well, Hiccup was unconscious for days. Only Astrid could speak for me. I think that Stoick thought I would be safer in his house than in hers.”

“I’m sorry.” Her hand still for a moment, and Heather flicked back her hair as she looked up. It had not been an answer that she might have anticipated, although she could see as soon as it was said how it fitted into the tale of the Red Death that she had heard. “That wasn’t fair to ask.”

Elsa shrugged, turning slightly away to stir the stew again. “I could have refused to say,” she replied, quite steadily. There was a slight pause, though, before she turned back to face Heather and smiled again. “I do not mind. And the rest of Berk knows anyway. I was rather less… dramatic than the dragons, I suspect. They minded me less.”

Heather thought of Camicazi’s reaction to Elsa’s magic, and what the shock might have been like multiplied all the way across Berk. In contrast, even she – actual betrayer and criminal – had been slid into the village more easily than visiting some islands had ever been. “I had noticed that about Berk,” she said.

Although perhaps she was simply secondary to the fear of this Dagur of the Berserkers, in the same way that Elsa was likely secondary to the fear of dragons.

Elsa let out a sigh that had the shadow of a laugh within it. “They are… different.” She tucked back her hair, delicate fingers curling around the line of her ear. “So, how is the Gronckle iron doing?”

For a moment, Heather had to stop whisking altogether, so sudden was the laugh that burst from her. “That’s not a question!”

“It is! I am asking something, I would like you to answer it,” Elsa put her right hand on her hip, and there was a glitter in her eye again, “so it is a question.”

“Not the sort of question for _this game_ , then.”

Her lips twitched. “If you don’t answer it, does that mean that I win?”

She had heard from Astrid that there had been a game of I’m Awesome which had somehow ended with Elsa winning, something which Snotlout had not tried again since. She had been laughing too hard to ask for details. “Fine! Fine, if you are so determined to waste a question on me.” She shook out her wrist, and set to whisking again. “I’m sure it’s iron ore and limestone, that much is easy, but I can’t figure out what the third one is. If it even is three!” She gestured with the whisk, only to splatter the mixture of almond milk and egg whites on her cheek. There was a moment while Elsa stared at her, and she stared at Elsa, then they both began giggling. Heather wiped the snowe from her cheek. “It could be four,” she continued, more calmly. “I’m almost through the samples that Hiccup and Fishlegs brought me.”

“Stoick did indeed look concerned at the pickaxe,” said Elsa, removing a petal.

Hiccup’s confusion about calling both Stoick and Gobber his father would have been endearing, were it not for the way that it had panged in Heather’s heart. But she had to admit that Stoick’s flustered response must have been something to see. She nodded to the daisy. “Remove one, please? And, hmm…” she pursed her lips for a moment, mulling. “Do you enjoy sailing?”

Elsa tilted her head, smile and eyes together managing to make it clear that she found the question interesting. “I have only been on a boat once,” she said, and somehow _that_ was almost as shocking as the magic, the thought of someone who had kept solid ground beneath their feet their whole life. “To Arendelle, in the summer. It was all right, nothing special.” She shrugged. “We passed down the Wildlands’ shore and I…” a roll of her head, and for a moment she looked at the wall instead of at Heather. “I was nervous of that.”

Heather let the words linger; there would have been a time when she would have been sure what just to say, at least to turn the conversation back to jokes and playfulness. But now it was harder to be sure quite where she wanted to take their words at all, and steering conversations in the way that she once had was more tiring.

“But the sailing was fine,” said Elsa, slightly curtly. Like she was snapping back into herself, perhaps. “I presume you like to sail?”

“I’ll give you that as a free question.” Heather leant her hip against the table. “ _Of course_.”

At least that seemed to lighten the mood again, as Elsa’s eyes traced the line of Heather’s cheek. “Do you enjoy flying?”

“Yes.” The answer came more quickly than she expected, tripping off her tongue almost before Elsa had finished the question. “It’s… a little like sailing, the freedom. But with more of a thrill. At least, when Hiccup is the one doing the flying.”

Even in the worst and most sudden of storms, she had not felt the fear in her heart or the weight in her stomach that had assailed her when Hiccup had pulled her onto a dragon for the first time and wheeled them through the air. The world had turned grey before her very _eyes_ as he dove, and he had acted like it was nothing. Gods only knew what sort of stuff he, or perhaps all Berkians, were made of.

“But the smell of the sea air, and the light on the horizon… those are the same.” The way that her heart had sung in her chest, and the way that the wind had felt on her cheeks. “Do _you_ enjoy flying?”

Elsa fixed her with a stare which she hoped was only mock-serious. “You are repeating my question,” she said.

“There are no rules against it,” said Heather, with her best attempt at a winning smile. “Not many rules at all to this game. Can’t be, if you want Vikings to be able to play it.”

“Fine. Then I shall steal _your_ questions as well.” Elsa illustrated her point with a jab of the wooden spoon in her hand, but her smile had broken back through again. “But…” she went back to stirring. “I am all right with flying. I like being with the dragons, and flying is… useful. But I do not live for it, like Hiccup does.”

That was certainly one way to describe him. “He does rather, doesn’t he?”

Of course, she did not know what Hiccup had been like before dragons. But knowing him now, it was strange to think that there had ever been a _before_ ; dragons seemed to envelop his every thought, his every breath. Thinking back, she could see the difference in him _without_ Toothless, stuck in the cell, but even then it was obvious in hindsight that he had been fighting every hour to get back to him.

“Would you like to fly?” says Elsa. “With Hnoss or Gersemi?”

Heather glanced over at the wall of the house against which the woodshed stood, where it had seemed most logical to put Hnoss and Gersemi in echo of what Hiccup’s family seemed to have done with their Thunderdrum. “They’re more like neighbours,” she said. “Fellow workers, I suppose. From what I see of the riders, they’re more like shieldbrothers with the dragons that they ride.”

The snowe was starting to stiffen up beneath her attention, even if her arm was starting to burn. There was a weird sort of satisfaction to it, one which she had forgotten about. Even realising that she should have eaten hours ago didn’t make her feel quite so guilty.

“Would you _like_ a shieldbrother of a dragon?” Elsa cocked her head.

Heather raised an eyebrow. “That’s two questions in a row.”

“Then you may have two questions next time.” The slight purse of her lips, the way the light shone in Elsa’s eyes, and Heather wished that she could have moments like this even once a day. It felt for a moment like she had something to hold onto in the deep, cold waters of the days.

At least she had many years of not letting things like that show on her face, and she was fairly confident that her expression did not betray her as she leaned against the table and cocked her hip. “Very well, then. I…” she had been too busy letting the moment take her, she realised, to have actually paid attention to the question. “I suppose so.”

She would not have been able to stop her voice from softening even if she wanted to. The way that Hiccup looked at Toothless, the way that Astrid moved so comfortably with Stormfly, the way that even Snotlout gravitated to Hookfang. She could feel a longing so deep that it was almost envious, even if she wasn’t sure that it was just about the dragonriding.

Well, if she were truthful, she was fairly sure that it was barely about the dragons at all. But there was too much work to be done for her to unpick the tangled threads.

“If I found a dragon that I fit with like that, at least,” she continued, knowing it had only been a second that she had lost herself in thought but still feeling it open up like an hour. Elsa’s eyes were still on the stew, and perhaps, just perhaps, she had not noticed. Heather would prefer it that way, prefer this company over Elsa trying just a little too hard to help. “I mean, I’m not expecting something like Hiccup and Toothless but…”

“I’d hope that few would.”

“But if I felt a bond,” Heather finished, the words easier to float across Elsa’s gently teasing tone, “then yes.” She smirked. “Now, I believe I owe _you_ two questions in return.” She put a finger to her lips in an exaggerated pose of thinking, long enough that Elsa looked round and raised an eyebrow. “I feel like I should raise the stakes a little. What’s your worst habit?”

This time, it was both eyebrows that Elsa raised. “Pardon?”

“Your worst habit. Like… you know it annoys people, or that you shouldn’t do it, but you do it anyway.” Heather set aside the bowl of snow, and pulled over the fruit to begin roughly cubing it. “Like… Snotlout, and flirting with all the wrong people.” At that, Elsa laughed. “Or Hiccup and his tendency to bring home new dragons on a regular basis. And new young women, if Snotlout is to be believed.”

“To be fair to Hiccup, the last dragon was Anna’s doing. But…” Elsa trailed off, but when Heather glanced up she looked thoughtful, not worried. That was a good sign, at least, and Heather could be fairly sure she had not pushed too far. Even more sure when Else snorted, inelegantly, with laughter. “Well, there is about nothing that I will not eat.”

Heather had seem – and smelled – some extraordinary dishes across various islands. “That is not a worst habit.”

Elsa tilted her head, eyes not meeting Heather’s despite the challenge and joking together in her tone. “It is one think to cut the mould off cheese or eat stale bread, yes, but even things that Hiccup thinks should be thrown away, I will eat.”

“Should I tease him for being squeamish?” said Heather, curiosity genuinely piqued. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the fermented fish they like out east…”

Finally, Elsa looked dead at her. “Frogs?” she said. Well, that was a little stranger, but not unthinkable. Heather shrugged one shoulder. “Worms?”

“Don’t tease–” it took a beat before she realised that Elsa was serious. She had seen that Elsa could fight, certainly, and knew that no place called the Wildlands could exactly make for an easy life, but she supposed she had not considered just how hard some aspects could be. “Sorry. I did not mean to press too hard.

“You did not,” said Elsa, and though she looked away it was only to go back to the stew. “Besides, Hiccup is still not quite sure that you do not eat bat. _That_ you could easily tease him with.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” The snowe was probably firm enough, and she set it aside, turning back to the chopping block and picking up the first of the apples. It was already going a little soft, but not turning brown; it would certainly do once baked. “But I shall be nicer with my second question, at least.” Gratified as she was by Elsa’s clear honesty, she would rather see Elsa smiling or laughing again. “What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?”

This time, Elsa’s laugh sounded surprised. Heather paused in her work to see Elsa blushing, colour across her cheeks and down her neck that had not been there by the heat of cooking alone. Elsa tucked back her hair behind one ear, still smiling but with her teeth grazing her lip, and only caught Heather’s eyes for a second before looking away again.

“That is a strange question,” Elsa said.

She had faint freckles across the bridge of her nose. Heather was not quite sure why the blush on Elsa’s cheeks made it more visible; perhaps Heather was simply looking more closely. It was clear from her words, though, that strangeness was not the thing that had caught Elsa off guard, not as her smile lingered.

“Go on,” said Heather. She glanced down Elsa’s form and back up before she even caught herself. “You must have had plenty.”

Was _that_ too much? She did not mean her voice to soften in the way that it did, had not really thought through her words before saying them. But gods, it was true; Elsa’s sweetness, her beauty, the power that she wove between her fingertips… and Berk was hardly shy with its words, be they praises or condemnation. She could not fathom Elsa having _not_ been given praise.

Another soft, uncertain laugh left Elsa’s lips, and for a moment she did not reply, simply removing the pot from the heat and pausing, hands either side of it. “It… it would be yours.”

Heather startled, straightening up. “What?”

“You… your words, about my ice.” Elsa shrugged, and Heather’s heart seemed to beat a little faster. “So many people in Berk fear it… even those who try not to, they often think me brave just for using it. No matter whether what I do is something beautiful, or some clumsy attempt.” Finally, _finally_ , she looked back. Her eyes were bright in the firelight, bright against her cheeks. “There have been a few times when… the twins…” she made a vague gesture with her right hand, not quite like Hiccup’s enthusiastic gesticulations but at least a little similar. “But yours are… heartfelt, I think that is the word.” She pronounced it carefully. “True.”

“Well,” said Heather, surprised to find herself slightly breathless. “You need not ask me the same question in return… that is easily the best compliment _I’ve_ ever had.”

A pretty face, well, that was one thing. But that sort of compliment, especially one that spoke of honesty Heather did not feel she had made herself particularly known for in Berk… she found herself blushing in turn, and wondered whether she might be able to blame it on the heat of the fire at all. Astrid would ‘spar’ her to a bruised mess and laugh when she said she should never have asked for training, and Snotlout… well, Snotlout tried. But the words did not seem forced, from Elsa, just shy, and Heather wondered how many more compliments she could work in, and if they would make Elsa blush again.

“I think this is good, now,” Elsa said. “Does that call the game to a halt?”

Heather reached over and pulled off the appropriate number of petals. There were still about a dozen left. “Depends how badly you want to win,” she teased. Elsa shook her head, smiling. “There are plates on the shelf, behind you. If you wouldn’t mind grabbing the dish beside them, with the lid, as well…”

Her hands resolutely did not shake as she peeled and chopped her way through the fruit, although she knew that she was not making the tidiest job of it that she could have done. She all but dumped the fruit into the dish as Elsa began to serve up two bowls of the stew, and quickly grabbed a bowl to mix the honey with water.

“Should I–” Elsa began.

“One moment.” Berk may not have had much in the way of spices – well, Heather didn’t actually know, since she did not exactly have the money to go searching, but something told her it was not the sort of place to be trading for them – but there were at least some to be found. Elsa was still standing, one bowl in each hand, as Heather reemerged from the pantry with her quarry: a small bag of juniper berries paid for by an afternoon helping Phlegma clear stones from a cleared plot of land. Heather’s back had ached, but at least it had felt like honest work. “There,” said Heather. A touch of spice.”

She crushed them under the flat of her knife before adding them to the honey and pouring it over the fruit. Not exactly her most skilled cooking, but it would do. Lid on, she left the food beside the fire, and nodded Elsa to the table while she retrieved spoons, mugs of water, and the heel of a loaf of bread that was only slightly stale.

Not that Elsa would judge, considering what she had said about being willing to eat anything that came her way. But Heather could not help feeling ashamed of the state of her pantry when she looked at it through more awakened eyes.

“So,” said Elsa, as Heather finally sat down opposite her. Most of the blush had gone from her cheeks, but there was still colour visible at the neck of her shirt. Elsa put the point of her spoon to the table and trailed her fingers down it. “My question, I believe.”

“It isn’t really a win-lose game,” said Heather. “I know Vikings tend to the competitive, but you don’t have to–”

Elsa pointed the spoon straight at her. “My question.” Then her smile faltered, and her shoulders fell as she quickly lowered her hand again. “Unless you are not enjoying it. I am sorry.”

“No, it’s not that!” Heather restrained a laugh. “I just didn’t want you thinking it was a competition instead of a game. Not everything is as competitive as Astrid makes it out to be. Go on.”

“All right. What is your favourite song?”

It sounded like it should be difficult, with all the songs in the world, but it was a question that Heather had heard before. She smiled. “The ones not yet written. There’s so many more of them than the songs that we have, right?”

There was something in Elsa’s expression that she couldn’t read, at least not right away, and that was unusual. Even if she would say so herself, Heather was good at reading people’s expressions. But it still took her a moment to place it – a particular fondness, of hearing an answer one really should have expected in the first place. Something being confirmed, the opposite of surprise.

“Those sound good,” Elsa said, voice soft. She really did have a musical feel to her words, Heather could not help but think. It was strange sometimes to think that the person who moved with such restraint and gentleness had been the same one who had pinned Heather to a wall of ice to demand whether she, too, had magic. Had rained death down on the Berserkers and traitorous Outcasts. But it was like Elsa had a core of steel, she supposed, which she did not need to rely on all the time. Who had swathed herself against the world enough to face it smoothly.

Heather still felt too raw, too brittle, to be able to claim the same. Whatever protections she might once have had, they had been stripped away on Outcast Island, by the man they had called Dagur. One day, she would have to repay him the favour. “Thank you,” she said aloud, before her thoughts could turn too dark. “But at least let me get some eaten before I ask again. I would hate your escorting it over here to go to waste.”

The dark thoughts would not die down as quickly as she hoped they would, even as she began to eat. It was good, she would give it that. More than that, it was warm solid food, almost good enough to make her stomach ache, but that was probably just that she had not been eating properly at all.

Not that it was easy to eat while part of her was still thinking, longingly, of what it would be like to slide a blade between Dagur’s ribs the way he had done to her mother. What it would be like to see _his_ blood spill, feel _his_ lifeheat flood over her hands. To see the light go out in his eyes.

No. She could not think like that. Had to look to her father recovering, had to look to establishing a life on… well, if it had to be one island, she supposed at least it could be one as interesting as Berk. Hiccup had said that the time would come for the Berserkers, in spring. Until then, it would do no good to waste her life away waiting for the end of another’s.

She made herself look over Elsa instead, sleeves slipping down again, the careful movement of her left arm – probably protecting her shoulder still, Heather supposed – as she ate. The flutter of her pale eyelashes, the freckles that were easier to see now that Heather knew they were there. Elsa who had killed and hurt and destroyed on Outcast Island, now sitting and eating and who had just that night been giggling at absurd questions.

 _Living_. Actively living, not just letting life happen.

Perhaps her gaze went on too long, as Elsa looked up and blinked in surprise. Feeling caught, Heather went to avert her eyes, then gathered her wits and slid a smile into place again. “Considering my next question,” she said, as smoothly as she could manage. From Elsa’s cock of her head, she was fairly sure that she succeeded.

“If it is recipes, I am afraid I probably will not have many interesting ones,” said Elsa. “And if it’s truffle locations, I am afraid I am keeping _that_ a careful secret before someone accidentally takes a Gronckle there and they all disappear.”

Food would usually be a safe area of conversation, but unfortunately it had not really turned out to be on either of their parts that evening. Every turn seemed to lead to a narrow ledge, but… neither had fallen. Yet, at least.

There was no way that Elsa could have been deliberate when she slipped her spoon into her mouth, or when she slowly dragged it down to lick it clean. To be fair, it should not really have been as fascinating as it was. But the deliberate movement just brought Heather’s attention back to Elsa’s mouth – to her words, her smile, her laugh, gods.

She wondered whether it would be inappropriate to try for a kiss. Whether, worse, Elsa would draw away or turn her down.

The risk was not worth this tentative friendship.

Heather licked her lips, tore off some bread. “What’s your best kiss story?” she said. That was a lesser risk, at least, so open-ended that Elsa could use it to describe another person’s kiss, to describe anything.

Even if a fragment of her hoped that Elsa would echo her, and say _the ones not yet given_.

She did not expect Elsa to smile, sheepishly, and take a sip of water before setting her cup down with some finality. “I… only have one good one there, I’m afraid. And that is when Hiccup and I pretended to be married for…” The smile faded, and something like fear flashed through her eyes. “I’m sorry, it was to fool Dagur, I did not think–”

“Someone who deserves to be fooled.” She showed no sign of her heart pounding in her chest, refused to let her hand tighten any more around her spoon. Instead, she focused on the thought of Dagur, thoroughly fooled. Preferably humiliated. Yes, that sounded better. “Please, give me _all_ the details.”

“Well, there’s at least one joke which I’m not quite certain I understand, which I’m afraid I will need to skip,” said Elsa. Heather nodded. “But, ah – well, Hiccup said in, what has he called it since, a ‘moment of madness’ that he was married. He was too embarrassed to ask Astrid,” there was the slightest note of amusement in her voice that made it clear she knew more than she publicly let on, “so I agreed. It only cost me two kisses on the cheek, which is probably quite chaste for most marriages–”

Heather would have kil- would have paid good money for such a wry tone of voice when telling some tails. She propped her chin in her hand, smiling.

“And I told him he could owe me a pie, as pie seems to be way to repay favours in Berk,” Elsa continued, and at _that_ Heather could not help laughing. “I do not believe he ever actually cooked one for me.”

“How is his cooking?” said Heather.

“You gave me a free question earlier, yes?” Elsa’s eyes sparkled and, gods damn, but she was sharp. “If he does not get distracted, it is all right.”

“You know, somehow I expected something about him setting things on fire, but with him that probably wouldn’t make for good teasing material anyway.”

“No, the bats are probably better.”

For all that Heather had originally told the lie just to find out where she could find bat caves, to scrape together guano for smokebombs that she had wanted just for some sort of security in those days. At least Elsa, for one, could see the humour in hindsight.

“Well, I shall take away that the going rate for a kiss on Berk is one pie.” She gave a flick of her eyebrows and let her expression grow flirtatious. It was gratifying to see the colour come back into Elsa’s cheeks; it made her feel a little more alive, a little more like she had some influence on the world. “Is that always true?”

“They’re probably worth more shortly before Slaughter Day,” said Elsa.

She _had_ to be flirting in return, Heather was sure. It was not just the lingering looks or the smiles, the teasing words; Heather had been careful to watch how Elsa was around others, to be sure that she was not wildly wrong. Not Anna, or Hiccup – they were family. Would be different. But she had to think that the rest of the riders would be a fair comparison, that Elsa’s smiles did not linger so long for Astrid, that she would not so readily take Fishlegs’s hands.

Bringing round food, well, that was specific to Heather’s circumstance. But staying to cook and share it… Heather hoped that, at least, could mean something more.

“What’s yours, then?” Elsa added. Heather cocked her head. “Your best kiss story.”

Heather actually did not know where the daisy was, come to think of it. But she was not averse at all to the game continuing without it, especially if Elsa came out with questions like that in turn. “My first?” she said, instinctively. It was an easy story to tell, after all. “Though I daresay it wouldn’t count by some standards. When I was a kid, I got sick – so bad that my parents got turned away from the first island they tried to land on. But on the second island, their healer worked with an alchemist, who had this way of processing willow bark to make it stronger. Broke my fever, saved my life.” She shrugged. “When I woke up, I was so grateful I threw my arms around the alchemist’s neck and kissed her cheek. I don’t think that was the thanks she was expecting.”

Elsa laughed, looking charmed. “It is a story. It has a kiss. I think it counts.”

Berk was… open, like that. About women with women, or men with men. Heather had not asked whether it went back to before Stoick and Gobber, or whether it had simply taken root quickly, but with Hiccup next in line as chief it probably did not matter. Going from island to island, she had learned to quickly gauge the prevailing winds, as her father would say, but with everything that had happened it was not so easy to be sure of things in Berk.

“Well, then.” The stew was getting cold, and Heather did not care. It would taste as good cold anyway, she was sure. “Looks like I need to try harder if I want to win. Who of the Riders would you most want to kiss?”

She made sure to meet Elsa’s eyes, to add just the edge of a challenge to her voice. It was a strange thing to be clinging to, perhaps, as pieces of her world crashed down around her, but keeping her eyes on the horizon had seen her through storms before.

It was just that this storm was already growing larger than any she had known. She had a suspicion that these stolen days were only the eye of it.

“I’ve already told you that I kissed Hiccup,” said Elsa. Any voice was nice over the all-too-silent house – gods, even the sounds of Hnoss and Gersemi outside were better than nothing – but hers was particularly pleasing. “So I guess he’s my answer to this question as well.”

Not quite enough of an answer, not for the dryness in Heather’s mouth and the beating of her heart. Even feeling that, steady in her chest, felt a little like triumph tonight. “Spoilsport.”

 _Something_ flashed in Elsa’s eyes, too fast to quite settle on. Somehow she had managed to eat rather more of her stew, and Heather wondered where she had mastered that particular trick. “What do you think of unholy wildling charms?” she said.

Heather looked at her in complete bewilderment. Clearly the words meant something, from the way that they rolled cleanly off Elsa’s tongue, but she had no idea what that thing might be. It probably wasn’t as sexual as her mind immediately wanted to supply; Elsa was too sweet with her words for that, had blushed just at the mentions of a kiss.

Finally, Heather managed a laugh. “I don’t know,” she said, honestly, and it felt strangely like relief to say that in reply to _anything_. “I can’t say I’ve heard of them before.”

She thought there was something sheepish in Elsa’s expression, not quite hidden in a glance downwards and away. Whether it was a joke she didn’t get, Heather did not know, but she wondered whether she had been imagining there being something hopeful in Elsa’s gaze.

“Hmm.” She pretended to glance towards the door. “It’s dark outside by now, right? That means we can up the stakes further.” At least Elsa looked intrigued by that, as Heather took a deep breath and dared. “Who was the last person who saw you naked?”

For a moment, Elsa blinked at her, and Heather felt a stab of fear that she had ruined whatever might have been sparking in the air between them, but then Elsa’s smile returned. “Well, most likely Anna, since we do share a room,” she replied, with a flick of her spoon. Then she giggled, and shook her head to herself. “Although before that it would likely be half of Berk, considering Dragon Island…”

“ _What_?”

“My ice…” Elsa shrugged. “It breaks fabric. No, that is not the word. Destroys? It destroys fabric. On Dragon Island – you have heard about the Red Death hatchlings?”

They would have been the stuff of nightmares, if Heather’s nightmares did not tend to be far more human in form. “I have.”

“My ice protected _me_ from their fire, but unfortunately not my clothes. I was still covered in the ice until… until we realised Hiccup had fallen.” She sighed, and shook her head again. A tendril of hair had made its way loose beside her ear, curling. “At the time it was not funny, but Hiccup’s face when Snotlout told him about it…”

She had seen a few of Hiccup’s more choice expressions, and could imagine a few for this one. Heather started chuckling, then as Elsa did what could only have been an imitation of Hiccup’s expression lost her composure altogether. The tight-pressed lips, the wide eyes, the tight jaw; it would have been funny enough on Hiccup, but seeing Elsa imitate him in an adorably sibling-like manner was enough to tip her over the edge.

Elsa managed to hold the expression for a few seconds, then laughed as well, setting down her spoon and reaching for the other half of the bread. “Astrid found me a cloak,” she added, as Heather tried to rein herself in again. “That did not feature in Snotlout’s retellings.”

“I can only imagine. So Hiccup brings girls back to Berk, and Snotlout flirts with them. Quite the family system.”

Elsa paused, lips parted, with the look of one picking their words carefully. “I do not think Hiccup and Snotlout work _together_ in that way,” she said, finally. But that did at least confirm that Snotlout had previously flirted with Elsa, at the very least. From Snotlout’s behaviour, Heather would hazard a guess that he had never been successful and would not know what to do next anyway, but she did not intend to be the person to test that hypothesis.

“Your question,” said Heather, taking the opportunity to actually eat. Even lukewarm, the stew was indeed pretty good.

“Hmm…” This time it was Elsa who propped her chin in her hand, head tilted to the right. “What did you think when you first saw me?”

 _That_ , Heather did not expect, and it was certainly less of an opportunity for teasing given the circumstances in which they had met. “Well,” she said, “the first time I saw you _was_ when you and Hiccup were escorted into the cells, which can’t be the most flattering. I was confused, mostly. But you asked how I was almost straight away.” She let her smile soften. “So I thought immediately that you were kind. We had that whole day before I saw you again.”

Elsa wrinkled her nose. “I do not do well at… ah… ‘first impressions’.”

Her accent was quite captivating. “Well, I can’t say that I made the best one, either,” said Heather.

She wished that she could change it. Could change everything. Perhaps if she had told Hiccup right at the beginning that–

It did not matter. She pushed the thought away, knowing that even the gods could not change things that had already passed. “At least Berk doesn’t seem to worry too much about those.” She scooped up her mug and offered it to Elsa in a toast; Elsa looked uncertain for a moment, then glanced between Heather’s mug and her own. Heather nodded. Finally Elsa picked up her mug and held it up in return, and Heather clacked them together. “To second impressions,” she said.

Elsa smiled again. “To second impressions.”

Heather drank down the luck, even if it was only water, then sniffed at the air as the baked apples and pears made themselves known. “And to dessert, I think. Baked fruit and snowe.”

She said it deliberately, and as she expected Elsa _almost_ managed to keep a straight face but did let her gaze flick towards the door. Heather held a straight face for as long as she could muster, putting aside their empty bowls and heading for the fire, but was not quite able to get there before she cracked.

“It’s spelled differently. It’s what I was mixing earlier,” she said, gesturing to it.

Annoyance flickered across Elsa’s face, but her sigh did not at all feel aimed at Heather. “Reading Berk’s letters is like catching live fish.”

“I think I need to keep that line for a poem at some point,” Heather teased. She pulled on her gloves to move the baked fruit to the table, but tossed them aside when it came to bringing across the snowe and spooning it straight on top. “Maybe not about words, though. I’m not sure everyone would appreciate the irony.”

She retrieved two fresh spoons, even if Elsa looked somewhat surprised to be handed one.

“Well, I can’t eat it all by myself,” said Heather.

“I was expecting…” Elsa drew some shape in the air.

Heather took a stab at what she meant. “Well, it leaves me with less dishes to wash.”

She hoped that she was not stepping on some wildling custom, doing something that they would consider overly taboo, or overly intimate, just for a meal together. But Elsa blushed quite prettily, smiled, and nodded for Heather to sit back down again.

Acceptable, then. Heather had deliberately put the baked fruit closer to Elsa; now, she pulled her chair round to the end of the table instead, to sit a little closer rather than opposite, and settled down into it. “So, does that call an end to our game?”

“I think it makes it a draw,” said Elsa, sweetly.

“You know what?” After everything that she had lost, a draw sounded good. Heather smiled. “I’ll take it.”


End file.
